The Passage by Justin Cronin - Review

Despite the hype, despite it's length, I loved this book. And think it's a perfect crossover title.

It all starts with a covert government experiment with 12 death-row inmates injected with a virus. They become increasingly violent, intolerant of light, overpowering with their thoughts. Then the government decides to inject 6-year-old Amy and things go very wrong. The virus spreads into a plague, riots erupt, and the world as we know it falls apart. Amid the chaos, an FBI agent and a nun become convinced they must save Amy.

Years later, an enclave of survivors uses lights to keep the virals away--but the power is beginning to fail. They find a young wanderer at their door, a girl who seems like a link between them and the virals, and who carries a message embedded in her neck: "if you find her, bring her back."

Once in a while you find a book that so enthralls you that to surface from it seems a crime. This is such a book. Epic in scale, it is horrifying, chilling, thought provoking, compulsive, and the best book I've read this year. It will keep you up, make all else stop, make the hairs on the back of your neck prickle. You'll talk about it for weeks. If you only read one book this summer, it should be this one.